October 12th, 2011

Well, tomorrow is release day for my first middle grades/slash adult novel, Darwen Arkwright and the Peregrine Pact, published by Penguin/Razorbill. I couldn't be more thrilled! If you check in here often you'll know that this is the first of at least three books in the series, that the book has already garnered some great reviews, and that it will also be coming out overseas. I'm about to start a number of school and library visits, and will be one of the featured authors at the Pacific Northwest book fair.  I'm not done with adult books, but this is an exciting new phase in my career and I'm keen to see how it will develop. And besides, just because a book's target audience is in the 9-14 bracket doesn't mean it won't appeal to adults. Harry Potter, anyone?

I'll be blogging about becoming a middle grades writer over at Magical Words and there are a number of interviews and features popping up all over the web, so keep your eyes open. There is also a new Darwen-specific website to which I'll be adding material over the next few months.

I'm currently in the final stages of the second book in the Darwen series which will be published in Fall 2012.

In other news, I can now confirm that Macbeth, a Novel will be published as a conventional book in the spring by Thomas and Mercer in electronic and hard copy formats.

September 12th, 2011

As usual I've waited too long to update this, but it has been an incredibly busy time. Macbeth, a Novel, came out at the end of June as an audio book read by Alan Cumming, and has done remarkably well both critically and in terms of sales. It has been a pleasantly surprising response to what we always knew was a bold, even risky project. I expect to be able to announce a print edition over the next week or so, which I will do through facebook/twitter.

The second DARWEN book has been revised, though there's still a little tweaking to do, and I've drafted the first version of a stand-alone young adult novella, a ghost story with a twist. The working title is Nine Twenty Two, but I doubt that will last.

Amazingly, we're only a month away from the release of Darwen Arkwright and the Peregrine Pact, a prospect which--much like the book, I hope--is thrilling and terrifying. Tough I generally write very quickly this book has been in the works for two and a half years, so I would feel more than usually invested in it even if it wasn't also my first incursion into the world of younger readers. I got a huge boost a couple of weeks ago from Kirkus Reviews, the industry's toughest book critics, who gave Darwen an incredibly enthusiastic review.

I'm currently in the midst of a convention blitz. I am newly returned from the always fun Dragon Con in Atlanta, and am about to do my first Bouchercon in Saint Louis. It's one of the perks of writing in multiple genres that I get to experience the gatherings of different groups of fans, and it will be fun to see just how wildly different things are at one of the country's biggest mystery conventions right after leaving 65,000 jedis, superheroes and steam punks! I'm doing a host of local events in the Carolinas closer to the Darwen release date (Oct 13th) and will be heading out to Portland for the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association on that very day...

Currently reading: Taking a break from Henning Mankell to enjoy Stephen Fry's two part autobiography, Moab is my Washpot and the Fry Chronicles. Fun, insightful, excruciating and jealousy-inducing, though I'm torn as to how much of that last is about his life, and how much concerns his prodigious talent.

July 13th 2011

Lots to talk about today. I'm just back from Thrillerfest in New York, my annual trip to rub shoulders with folk like David Morrell, Doug Preston, R.L Stine, Ken Follett and Jim Rollins. I spent a lot of time with David Hewson with whom I co-wrote Macbeth, a Novel, which came out at the end of June to rave reviews and big sales. We're delighted with how the project has been received so far, but I think my favorite accolade came from our esteemed narrator, Alan Cumming, who observed in one of he "making of" videos that Shakespeare's play now feels to him like something that was taken from our book after the fact! Very cool.

Thrillerfest is always a fun event, and this year was extra special since I was able to time meetings with my editors at 4 different publishing houses! It was particularly good to be able to sit down with the staff at Razorbill and talk about the Darwen Arkwright books, the first of which comes out in October. I'm currently working on rewrites for the second book in the series, and having a great time finessing it all. I also have an eye on material for the third book, even though that won't be out till fall 2013!

I spent much of June back in the UK, particularly in Wales, doing a lot of hiking and castle visits. Lots of great inspirational stuff, albeit unformed in my head as yet.

Tragically, the dog I'd had for 15 years died last month. I used to spend hours walking with her while wrestling with plot points. Losing her was a painful reminder that time marches on and that all we can do is make the best of our what we have. For me, that means producing more.

Watch, as they say (or used to) this space...

May 6th 2011

Fresh from Con Carolinas, I just got word that I can finally talk about a project I've been keeping quiet for the best part of a year.  This is something I'm very excited about, something I think will get a lot of attention.

Drum roll please...

On June 28th Audible will release as an audio exclusive a full length, adaptive novelization of Shakespeare's Macbeth, written by me and mystery writer David Hewson, and voiced by non other than Alan Cumming.

Yes, THAT Alan Cumming.

The book originated at last year's Thrillerfest when David and I got talking, prompted in part by his work for Audible on The Copper Bracelet and my Macbeth essay in the 100 Must Read Thrillers collection, which we were there to launch. Surely, we thought, someone had written a novel based on the play before, one set in Medieval Scotland, but written as a contemporary historical thriller, a story that drew on all the things a play can't do, like really showing the landscapes, the battles, a story that got into the characters' heads and explored all the political intrigue a 2 hour play can only glance at...

No one had. Excited, we decided to give it a go.

We wrote in a white hot fury, back and forth, expanding, amending, discovering a new take on the classic tale as we went, and when it was ready we pitched it to Audible as an audio exclusive.

Along the way we found all kinds of interesting ideas, characters who grew and changed as we rethought them, snippets of useful history and leaps of pure imaginative speculation.  We're confident that the finished product is much, much more than a pale imitation of Shakespeare's masterpiece, and we think and that it will appeal both to fans of the original and readers of edgy, contemporary fiction who wouldn't dream of reading Shakespeare for pleasure!

David (who is best known for his Nick Costa stories, set in modern Rome) has many gifts, but he's particularly good at place: architecture, landscape, the stuff that makes a story feel rooted and real, and he brings all his talents to Macbeth, A Novel in ways Shakespeare would be proud of. And it's a particular pleasure to hear this distinctly Scottish story in the voice of an actor who is himself Scottish, as well as being a monumental talent and personality.

As we approach the release date, there will be more to check out (images, Making-of videos and other celebratory hooplah) but this will have to do for now. Trust me, it's a relief to finally be able to talk about it. I can't wait to share the audiobook with you!

 

April 27th, 2011

Apologies for the long silence. It has been a blisteringly busy semester, much of it dominated by my directing of A Midsummer Night's Dream which closes this weekend. It's been a blast, and we've made all kinds of wonderful discoveries about the play, but it has also been exhausting and I'm looking forward to getting back to writing in earnest.

But it's not like the writerly side of my life dried up over the last few months. As usual I have more irons in the fire than I know what to do with. My novels came out as audio books last month through Audible.com, which was very exciting. The secret project will remain secret for about one month more: certainly no more than two. I'm about to start editorial work on the second Darwen book, and I have a shiny new landing site for the series at www.darwenarkwright.com. As release gets closer, that site will develop exponentially, and should capture the book's mood of mystery, adventure and fun nicely, thanks to my old friend Mary Kenny (who also designed this site). I have a new work in progress just starting to poke its head out of my subconscious. Once it has looked around a little and decided what it plans to be, I'll let you know. I have a number of conventions coming up: ConCarolinas (June, Charlotte), Thrillerfest (July, NYC) and Bouchercon (September, St. Louis). If you plan to be at any of them (and I will probably add more later in the year), make sure you flag me down to sign books or just say hi.

January 8th, 2011

Happy New Year! I've begun 2011 as I expect to spend it: absurdly busy. Lots of academic work looming including a theatre production to direct, but a lot of fiction work on the front burner as well.  I'm nearing the end of the first draft of the second Darwen book, and am hoping to be into the editing process by the end of the month.  I'm having so much fun writing this book and can't wait to start sharing it people.  It's not due to the publisher till July so I'm well ahead of schedule.

 And there's that secret project (still secret, alas!) which I'll say more about soon.

2010 ended with a lovely surprise. Kirkus Reviews listed WILL POWER as one of the best books of 2010 (fantasy/sci-fi category): a real honor.  Kirkus is one of the oldest and most trusted trade publications in publishing, so this is one of those listings I'll be citing for a long time to come. More to the point, it suggests that more than just liking the book, they got it, which is very important to me. Sometimes these books seem to get treated as diverting fluff because of their tone. I take the award as recognizing that there's more to them, especially to Will Power, which was always intended as a fantasy adventure which had things to say about the genre from the inside.

I'm hoping that the Kirkus listing will raise the series' visibility more generally, and encourage all readers to spread the word, write Amazon reviews etc. If you like the book and have a neat way of getting other people to read it (through libraries, traditional bookstores or online purchase: I really don't care), drop me a line. I'm always excited to hear from readers. Likewise, if you have a reading group and would like me to chime in (an e-mail or twitter interview, perhaps), get in touch.

As regular readers of Magical Words will know, 2011 has begun with the release of our How To book for writers: dozens of short essays on the craft and business of writing. It's available now and has been extremely well reviewed, garnering a very nice quote from non other than Orson Scott Card.

Last but not least I can announce that all 5 of my published novels will be released as audio books on March 22nd from Audible, and available worldwide through Amazon.  Audible always do a terrific job with their readers and production but I was particularly thrilled that the WILL books will be read by an old actor friend of mine from New York, Jonathan Davis, a veteran of Georgia Shakespeare. The books are in production now and I can't wait to hear them.

All the best for 2011. AJH

November 20th, 2010

The success of Darwen (Razorbill, Fall 2011) in Frankfurt (see Oct 14th entry below) has led Penguin to commit to a 3rd book in the series though the 1st one won't be out for almost a year! This is good to know as I work on book 2, and very encouraging for the long term prospects of the series. I hope to be posting the (very cool) cover art for book 1 soon.

I still can't say anything about the secret project (no, I'm not teasing or trying to create curiosity: I'm just not allowed to talk about it yet).  I can say, however, that we are only weeks away from the release of the How to Write Magical Words, collection. I'm excited about it, and think writers will find it genuinely useful. Not always the case with books on writing...

 

October 14th, 2010

Word is starting to come in from the Frankfurt Book Fair about the first foreign sales of Darwen Arkwright and the Peregrine Pact which will be out this time next year, by which time I'm hoping there will be a nice little buzz around the book. I have also completed my contributions (10 short essays) to the How To Write Magical Words book which should be out by Christmas this year. The first draft of the Julius Caesar performance history book is also just about done, and I have a complete first draft of the co-authored secret project novel the details of which I hope to be publishing soon. It's been a busy month...

September 13th, 2010

Recently back from a Shakespeare conference (and therefore lots of archive research, theatre and beer) in Stratford, and from Dragon Con which was a lot of fun: particularly the NY Times Bestsellers panel which I did with the great Jim Butcher (of the Harry Dresdon novels) Laurell K Hamilton and other luminaries.  We even got a write-up in Publishers Weekly here.

The big news of the week, of course, is that WILL POWER, the second in the Hawthorne Saga which began with Act of Will comes out in hard cover tomorrow from Tor! I'm excited to see what people make of it since it playfully pushes the envelope about what fantasy fiction is even more than the last one did.

I say that's the big news, but it's really the big news which I'm allowed to talk about. There's more which I have to keep to myself for a little while (and no, you'd never guess in a million years!), but hopefully I'll be able to talk about it soon. For now I'll just say that it's an exciting new project, rapidly conceived with a collaborator, and that it has already been sold.

I have turned in the final version of Darwen Arkwright and the Peregrine Pact, which will be released in hardcover this time next year.

Classes have restarted, so when I'm not writing furiously or blogging for Magical Words, I'm preparing for class, grading and trying to finish my performance history of Julius Caesar. The end--finally--is in sight!

July 20th, 2010

Just back from a week's hiking in New Mexico following hot on the heels of Thrillerfest in New York. At the convention I got to spend time with some real masters of the genre, picked up some writing tips and participated in the launch of 100 Must Read Thrillers in which I have an essay on Macbeth.  The collection just got an excellent review in the Washington Post.  I also had the chance to meet with my publisher and editor at Razorbill just as Publishers Weekly announced the sale of my middle grades/YA fantasy adventure Darwen Arkwright and the Peregrine Pact (the working title of which had been The Olde Mirror Shoppe). I'm currently doing final edits for that and dreaming up the second book in the series which is already under contract.

June 22nd, 2010

One week to go till the paperback release of Act of Will. Though it's always exciting when a book comes out, there's a measure of anxiety too, particularly in a case like this when I know that the performance of the paperback will determine whether or not there will be a third book in the series. The hardcover came out at a pretty tough time, so I'm hoping that this cheaper format ($7.99!) and swanky new cover (discussion of which you'll find here) will bring a wider readership. Tell your friends. Better yet, buy it for them :)

In other news, I had a great ConCarolinas which featured--in addition to the great panels and signings--quality time with my Magical Words colleagues and the dreaming up of some exciting projects for the future. I'm also gearing up for Thrillerfest in July and getting as much work done as the World Cup will permit.  I have completed an edit of the YA/middle grades book which WAS called The Olde Mirror Shoppe, but we have a new title now which took a long time coming and delayed the PW announcement mentioned below. That should be coming very soon.

 

March 3rd, 2010

It has taken a little time to finalize the details but I can now announce that I have sold what is currently titled The Olde Mirror Shoppe and a second (as yet unwritten) book in the same series to a major New York publishing house specializing in YA and middle grades fiction (which one will be announced in Publishers Weekly shortly). My agent and I got some very positive feedback from editors at a number of great houses but we feel that this is the right choice for us. The first book should be out in a beautiful, illustrated hardcover in the fall of 2011, with the second book following a year later. As readers of this page will already know, I've been working on this--my first book aimed at younger readers--for some time and spent the last six months gathering reader responses which helped me shape the "final" version.

This is a new direction for me, and one I'm extremely excited about, but it does not mean that I don't intend to write more of the kinds of book I'm already known for. Quite the contrary. I love what I do, and so long as there are readers interested in what I produce, I'll continue to produce more, be they mystery/thriller or fantasy aimed at adults. That said, this is a big deal for me and I'm thrilled to be able to introduce readers to the world, the characters and curious events I've been dreaming up around Darwen Arkwright and the Old Mirror Shoppe.

Feb 1st, 2010

The spat over e-book pricing between Amazon and Macmillan (which owns Tor) led to Amazon removing Act of Will from their site (and my Shakespearean Dramaturg book which, bizarrely, has been selling briskly of late). That dispute--or at least this stage of it--has been resolved and Will is now available again, as is Will Power which can be pre-ordered.

In other news, I'm doubling my participation in Magical Words and will be blogging there every other Friday on the craft and business of writing.

The Olde Mirror Shoppe has been in the hands of several major publishers of young adult fiction for exactly a week, so it will probably be some time before I can make any announcements on that front. I can say that the latest draft was given a real boost by a round of notes from no less a writer than R.L. Stine (of Goosebumps, among countless other things) who gave me a few very useful pointers about and said some very nice things about the book, some of which I hope will eventually finish up on its cover! Till then, fingers crossed. I'm excited about this book and want to see it in the hands of readers.

Jan 12th, 2010

My agency put out their seasonal newsletter yesterday and it features the pitch for my middle grades/YA novel The Olde Mirror Shoppe which can be read here. It seems to be generating some interest and I hope to be reporting a sale here soon. I amended the post below so that it contains the correct release date for the paperback version of Act of Will from Tor: it's July, not March.

Jan 5th, 2010

Happy New Year! I've already posted some of what that phrase means to me over at magicalwords.net so let me just say here that there's a good deal in the pipeline for 2010. Act of Will goes into paperback in July (with brand new cover art and a "recession-proof" price tag of just under 8 bucks!) and will be followed by Will Power in September (currently available for preorder on Amazon!). Later this month my agent will be sending The Olde Mirror Shoppe out to middle grades/YA editors and all evidence suggests there will be good news to report on that front fairly soon. The outcome of that is likely to determine what I spend the rest of the year writing. In the meantime, I'll be beatling away at my Julius Caesar performance history and a couple of other academic projects. I will continue to twitter (@willhawthorne) if you want to "follow" me (odious phrase) there: a good source for instant updates, spirited debate and moronic observations courtesy of yours truly. At least now the football season is over you won't have to put up with my whining about the Falcons.

Nov 9th 2009

Well, there was a certain inevitability to this. Some time ago Tor opted to move the paperback release of Act of Will back to summer of next year, and I have just learned that this will also mean the delay of Will Power, which will come out in September instead of February. Things like this are, alas, completely out of my hands, but apologies to those who were looking forward to the 2nd book in the series coming out early in the new year.

October 23rd, 2009

Nothing especially new to report. A cluster of foreign sales for What Time Devours and On the  Fifth Day (Spain and Russia) and one for Mask of Atreus (Serbia). It's always thrilling and humbling to think of my books being read all over the world.

Am currently polishing Mirror Shoppe ready for it go start making the rounds after the holidays while finishing a chapter on UK productions of Julius Caesar from the 1980s and 90s.  I've also been discovering my inner steampunk, partly because it's an aethetic that informs the parallel world in Mirror Shoppe, partly because it's just so much fun.

I recently contributed a second guest blog entry to Magicalwords.net--a really great site dedicated to the art/craft and business of writing--and am honored that they have chosen me to become a regular contributor. I'll be posting there on the first Friday of every month.   The site is that rare beast: a place where successful writers discuss their process and methods with whomever happens to stop by. It's a great resource for writers regardless of their level of expertise or professional achievement. I hope you'll check in from time to time and post comments.

I've also posted a link to a podcast interview conducted by Gail Martin on the main page.

And Twitter finally unblocked my site which they thought had malware, so hi to all you "140 character or less " folks... :)

October 1st, 2009

So. I've been sitting on this for a while now but my agent tells me I can let the cat out of the bag. Its nose, at least. Maybe some whiskers.  The short version is that I wrote a new book over the summer and that it's in a new genre for me. Kind of. In fact, it has elements of things I've done before--fantasy, adventure, mystery and a dash of humor--but is written for middle grades readers. It is and is not like the Harry Potter books and the first of what I hope will be a series is called The Olde Mirror Shoppe.

I've shown it to a few readers--my usual core plus some specialists in YA and children's--and the response has been exciting. My agent plans to take it in January of next year which gives her time to get the word out while I revise and polish till it positively glows with best-seller energy.

Will write more soon about the story...

September 8th, 2009

Just back from my first DragonCon, and 4 days of panels, readings and signings interspersed with sitting in on a few events,  and dining with Tor staff. And people watching, of course. With 40,000+ at the convention there were a lot of people to watch, and I admit to finding it a bit overwhelming. It was also a great deal of fun, however. Conventions like this get a bad press in the larger culture, all those people dressed up as Klingons and stormtroopers are dismissed as wackos and losers, people disconnected from reality. But anyone who spends any time around them knows that this isn't the case. These are people indulging a hobby among like-minded people, and the fact that their hobby might not be considered "mainstream" (and God save us from that), doesn't mean that they think they are Klingons or are in any other ways confused about either the nature of the world or their place in it. Quite the contrary.

I was in an elevator one evening which--for once--was not full of DragonCon folk and--not being in costume myself--was able to eavesdrop on some snide remarks made by a gaggle of aggressively normal twenty-somethings as they poured scorn on people who dressed up. One was wearing a t-shirt advertizing her placement in an Alabama beauty pageant and her male escorts were in college football jerseys.  I guess there are rules for playing dress-up and pursuing your passions.

That said, I found everyone at the convention itself smart, self-deprecating and quite charming. There was so much energy and playfulness everywhere as well as some truly breathtaking costumes, and I couldn't help feeling that it was, overall, one of the most tolerant and forgiving environments I'd ever been in. I'm all for that.

August 25th 2009

Back to school after a productive summer spent largely writing (a new project which I'm keeping under my hat for the moment) and in a jungle camp in Costa Rica. Corcovado national park is down on the Pacific coast close to the Panama border.  It's only accessible by boat and is considered one of the most bio-diverse places on the planet.  It took a while to get used to being woken by howler monkeys at 4.a.m every day and stepping over toads the size of melons to get to the (cold water) shower, but it was one of those once in a lifetime experiences. It's a real privilege to get a glimpse of sloths, anteaters, kinkajous, monkeys of various kinds, boa constrictors, toucans and macaws in their natural habitat (not to mention a very rare Baird's tapir which I got to within a few feet of), though I admit to being very relieved to get back to hot water and air conditioning. Outside the park itself we got to do all the adventure tourism stuff: zip-lining through the forest canopy, snorkeling horseback riding etc. but I don't think I'll ever forget the panic of wading across rivers while scanning for crocs and the (freshwater tolerant) bull sharks which hunt there... I have ideas about using the trip in a future book but I'm holding off decisions on that front till I have feedback from my agent and editors on the new project.

July 20th 2009

Thrillerfest panel moderated by Steve Berry. Photo Credit: Don Lafferty

Recently back from Thrillerfest in NYC: as usual an exciting, instructive and humbling experience. It reconfirmed my sense that some of the biggest names in the field—Steve Berry, James Rollins and David Morrell to name just three—are also among the nicest and most supportive guys in the business. My panel (about the use of history in modern thriller writing) stimulated an interesting range of debate from conceptual issues to nuts and bolts stuff about how writers identify suitable ideas, periods and places about which to write. It’s always good to be surrounded by writers who take their craft seriously, and I came home ready to write, and with some interesting techniques to experiment with. A month or so ago I also did ConCarolinas here in Charlotte, my first sci-fi/fantasy convention where I got to meet some great writers, including David Coe, Misty Massey and Faith Hunter who run a genuinely useful writers’ blog over at Magicalwords.net: an excellent resource for aspiring authors that I was honored to contribute to as a guest blogger a few weeks ago.

Since my last post, I’ve redirected my energies some, having decided my heart wasn’t in the new thriller series I had been planning. I may come back to my idea of a crime scene photographer, but the world already has enough CSI fiction, it seems to me. I’m not sure I really want to invest overly heavily in that world. Instead, I’ve been revising my draft of Tears of the Jaguar (tentative title), supplying Tor with the final edit of Will Power (out Feb 2010) and working furiously on a new project which I’m going to keep under wraps for a little bit longer. There’s been on-going chatter from movie producers about the Will series, but I’ll say no more on that until we actually sign contracts. Having been there before, I’m not holding my breath.

And, obviously, I’ve been rethinking this website. I like this new, cleaner look and will be updating more content soon. Hope you enjoy poking around it.

April 3rd 2009

ACT OF WILL sells apace, and I'm currently working on the final edits for the sequel which will be out next winter. Have also been exploring a couple of other projects including the development of WHAT TIME DEVOURS into a film script and a new series focusing on a crime scene photographer: both more and less conventional mystery than my thrillers, more in that the hero unravels cases from under the auspices of the police, though he's not an officer himself, and less because tonally it's much closer to ACT OF WILL. I'm going for something a little on the lines of Janet Evanovitch's PLUM novels, but with a male lead and a different angle on the action. We'll see how it goes. began research by doing a ride-along with the local CSS which was fascinating and unsettling. As I remarked to someone on Twitter (yes, I'm on Twitter now) I hadn't expected to be following a blood trail by flashlight from the place of a shooting at 4 in the morning... Booksigning tomorrow then off to DC for the Shakespeare Association of America where I'll probably do some stock signings if I ever make it out of the conference hotel.

March 16th 2009

Just back from New York and a wonderful Winter's Tale at the Brooklyn Academy of Music with Simon Russell Beale, Sinead Cusack and Ethan Hawke, among other notable. The Sicilia stuff was glorious. Off to my first signing for Act of Will which has been out two weeks though a clerical error delayed it reaching Barnes and Noble till now. This is my first fantasy novel and tonally very different from my thrillers, but the reviews thus far have been strong and I think readers will have fun with it:  humor-laced  adventure seems pretty timely right now. We could all use a little escapism... Looking forward to hearing reader feedback at the usual place (author@ajhartley.net). I have also added some extras about the history of the original manuscript from which the novel is taken on the Act of Will page, and I've added a couple more chapters to the one I already had posted so that readers can see if it's something they'd like to pick up.

As to what happens next.... Not sure. Publishing is being hit hard by the so-called "economic downturn" and a lot of writers, myself included, are feeling the pinch. New projects suddenly look uncertain, and directions similarly unclear. We'll see. Till then, here's hoping WILL makes a splash...

February 10th 2009

Er... Happy New Year. What can I tell you?: it's been a busy start to the year. What Time Devours seems to be doing well and--more importantly--has been well received, at least in the reviews I've seen and the mail I've been getting.  It seems to be generating interest abroad too, and we have already done a deal for the Dutch translation. Given the state of the economy (and that of the reeling publishing industry) I'm just glad people are buying books at all. The Tears of the Jaguar is now under consideration and I'll post something as soon as we have a definite publisher/release date lined up. In the meantime, I'll be working on the final revisions for the sequel to Act of Will which comes out next month and which got a very nice "starred" review in Publishers Weekly. There has been some interest in that book from Hollywood, but it's too early to say where that is going. I know the movie industry of old and won't be holding my breath. I'll be adding more on Act of Will and its tangled past soon. Work on that manuscript has been a long and complicated process which started almost twenty years ago...

December 18th, 2008

Two weeks till the release of What Time Devours and reviews are starting to crop up online. Have finished the new novel, whose working title is The Tears of the Jaguar and got an enthusiastic thumbs-up from my agent so I'll be looking to sell that in the new year. Hopefully by then What Time Devours will be popping up on the best sellers lists. There's been lots of scary/depressing news about the state of the publishing business in the last couple of weeks so I'm trying not to get too excited...

As some readers will know, the book is dedicated in part to Ira Yarmolenko, a former student of mine who was murdered back in May 2008. Last week two men were arrested and charged with her murder. I don't know what to say about that, except that this is the beginning of some kind of closure for her family.

October 29th, 2008

Yes, yes, I know, my uselessness at updating this continues apace. As usual, of course, I have the excuse of having been actually writing, among other things including a brace of writer's conferences, most recent in Myrtle Beach SC where I got to raise a few glasses with Jim Born and Michael Connelly among many pleasant and gifted folk. Of course, the big thing is that I'm almost done with draft one of the new book which doesn't have a title as yet but is set in Mexico and the UK. The end is not quite in sight, nor is it, as they say, the beginning of the end, but it is the end of the beginning, so there's that...

In just over two months What Time Devours will be out and a couple of months after that Act of Will will be out too. I'm adding cover art to the main page shortly.

More soon(er than last time)

July 22nd, 2008

OK, so even by my pathetic standards it's been a LONG time since I updated this. There are, however, reasons, and silence does not equal inactivity. Quite the contrary. Apart from various academic projects, including my up-coming book on the performance history of Julius Caesar and several papers for conferences and the like, I have been writing and editing furiously. I have turned in the final copy edited manuscripts of both Act of Will (due out from Tor Jan/Feb 09) and What Time Devours (due out from Berkley Jan 09), and made significant headway on the next thriller, much of which has grown out of a trip to certain Mayan remains in the Yucatan in April. More on that as the project progresses.

But what has really taken me out of updating the site was the murder of one of my students: Ira Yarmolenko, a charming and gifted child--she had just turned 20--who I directed in Doctor Faustus last year. She was a remarkable person, full of joy and hope and energy. I don't know what to say about this. As someone who writes about murder for entertainment purposes I found myself completely at a loss to process the real thing. I have wanted to write about this many times, but each attempt seemed to trivialize the event, the enormity of the thing. It doesn't help that the case is still wide open two months later, though I know the police are working hard to bring some kind of closure, preferably in the form of an arrest. A strange and terrible business, and my heart goes out to her family and to all those who knew her better than I did.

What Time Devours will be dedicated, in part, to her memory. When the book comes out, I will create a subsection of the page for that book (working in conjunction with her family) which will direct readers to charities and scholarships that are being set up in her name.

Feb 29th,  2008

The SC book festival was a blast. Got to spend some time with some fun folk: readers, writers, booksellers, organizers. Good time. And my new sat nav system got me there no problem (and to the zoo on the way back) so I'll now be able to write about such things and know what I'm talking about.

More up-coming signings listed on the news/events page, including one in Dallas (where I'll be for the Shakespeare Association conference, the other half of my double life).

Feb 1st, 2008

Man, I'm bad at this. I occasionally follow a link to an author's site and it really is embarrassing to see how everyone else is constantly updating the bloggs with pithy little entries about life, the universe and everything. Still, I do wonder how they ever get any other writing done. I can at least say that in the last two months I've got some stuff done. Here's the short version.

What Time Devours, as you may have seen in Publishers Weekly, was sold to Berkley last month. I'm excited about their plans to try and get it even more attention than the last two. We're doing final editorial revisions now. The book probably won't be out till early 09, alas, but I'm not sure about that yet. As soon as I have details, cover art etc. I'll post it.

Right now I'm engaged in an academic project: a book on the performance history of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.

The other big news is that I'll have a new fantasy series coming out from Tor, with the first--Act of Will--due out about the same time. This is a very different kind of book: a somewhat comic fantasy adventure told from the perspective of a young actor. The details of how this comes to have my name on it are complicated and will have to wait till I have more time. It's all very strange...

More soon on that.

December 5th, 2007

Another long period of silence. Apologies. A busy time of year in school with final papers, exams and performance projects all coming down to the wire. But as a novelist I have been far from idle. I have completed the new book, a Thomas Knight story involving a lost Shakespeare play called Love's Labour's Won (yes, it really existed). It is set in Chicago, England and northern France, and is called What Time Devours. I will say more about it later. For now, I'll just say that I'm excited about it and that it's with my editor...

In other news, I just signed a contract for French rights to The Mask of Atreus, which is nice and brings the total number of languages for that book to almost 20.

Oct 16, 2007

It's been a while since I added to this, but not for lack of news. I'll do it in bits...

FIFTH DAY seems to have done well. It's still very much around, and a lot of stores are now carrying MASK again, whose sales also spiked after FIFTH came out. I've had lots of good feedback and had a chance to talk about it at SIBA in Atlanta a few weeks ago, where I signed 200 copies after the fun/scary Moveable Feast.

But life goes on, so here's the NEW news.

First, the next Thomas Knight adventure/mystery/thriller (whatever it is I write) is almost done as a first draft. I'm into the patching and tweaking and polishing stages which will probably last another month or so, but the shape of the thing is there. For now I'll just say that it involves Shakespeare and champagne...

Second, I signed a two book deal with Tor for my fantasy adventures ACT OF WILL and WILL POWER, which should be out early 2009 and 2010 respectively. These are a little different from my other books in that they are set in a mythical vaguely late medieval world, but there's still plenty of mystery and adventure. They are first person stories told by a morally dubious apprentice actor called Will Hawthorne who--in the first book--finds himself in serious trouble with the local authorities and casts himself on the mercies of a band of principled adventurers... I love writing this stuff because I get to be a little more playful than usual.

That's all for now. Will add more frequently in future...

Aug 8, 2007

My big news is that FIFTH made the New York Times bestseller list (#28). Very good news.

Thanks to all who sent birthday greetings yesterday!

July 18, 2007

Just back from Thrillerfest in NYC and a round of meetings with agents and everyone at Berkley: a fun and productive time. At the conference I got to meet (and thank) all the folk who had so graciously done blurbs for my books: Doug Preston, Steve Berry, James Rollins and a handful of others. James Rollins was especially nice and encouraging. I also got books signed by Lee Child, David Morrell and David Hewson (a fellow Brit who writes beautiful and superlatively researched thrillers set in Rome). As I heard someone say, the bigger the writer, the nicer they seemed to be in person!

FIFTH seems to be doing well and entered the USA Today bestseller list at 121, which is wonderful (that list is the top 150 books in all genres and forms, hard and paperback). I hope it hangs in there for another week or two.

I signed stock all over New York which was pretty surreal. It's odd to feel like a (admittedly minor) celebrity in a city which is so cosmopolitan and overwhelming!

There was a very nice piece in the Charlotte Observer on Sunday, and the on-line version contains a link to the book's prologue (in case you've somehow wound up here without reading it!). Read it here.

July 10th, 2007

Fifth Day is now well and truly OUT! It continues to be strange to me to see the book in central store displays and, perhaps odder still, in grocery stores and pharmacies. I still haven't stumbled on someone reading it (or Mask, for that matter), something I think will push the strangeness still further.

I'm told the new book is selling well at Barnes and Noble, but we don't have numbers for other stores yet and probably won't for some time. It's being carried in my local Walmart, though I don't know if that represents a large scale effort by that chain, or if mine is one of only a few (which I believe is how it was with MASK, though my local didn't sell that one). Perhaps readers can e-mail me when they see it in stores!

I've started doing both official signings and drop-bys, and am heading to new York later this week for Thrillerfest which should be exciting and instructive. I'm used to academic conferences rather than those for writers and I expect the atmosphere will be very different. If anyone who reads this plans to be there, be sure to track me down and say hi. Panel and signing details on the News and Events page.

I recently returned from the Shakespeare trip I led to the UK in which a dozen undergrads spent 3 weeks hopping from theatre to site to museum in London and Stratford. It was an immensely rewarding experience but was also exhausting and I'm really only just over it enough to get back to writing. I had to get the final versions of two articles in shape before I could turn to my new fiction project, but this week I finally got to grips with it and made some real headway.

Obviously it's all very early so I can't say much, but the core story will involve a lost Shakespeare play, and much of it will be set in the UK. It centers on Thomas Knight. I'll say more when I get some more of it written.

June 29th, 2007

So here we go again. The book is not supposed to be out till early next week, but it's been showing up on shelves erratically all week. The waiting and watching and stressing starts all over... More later.

May 17th, 2007

Got a very exciting review for the new book from Publishers Weekly, and it inspired me to redesign the site to accommodate both novels. I also now have a place for that very cool James Rollins quote.

Signed the deal for the Indonesian edition of MASK.

Have been busily setting up signings which I'll enter as the dates are finalized, hopefully next week.

May 6th, 2007

Well, it's been a long semester. My show (Doctor Faustus) opened and closed after a grueling four month rehearsal period which took all my attention. It was worth the work, but it WAS work. In the meantime, MASK continued to sell and I did a deal for an Indonesian edition. The Hebrew version recently came out in Israel. I must put all their different covers up on the site sometime soon.

I've been working on a movie script called Winging It to be repped by Gersh this summer, doing final tweaks to FIFTH and trying to think about the next novel while writing a couple of Shakespeare articles and a book proposal on Julius Caesar in performance. A busy year.

I've started lining up signings for FIFTH beginning early July, some in Charlotte, some in New York where I'll be for Thrillerfest. Plenty more, I hope, TBA, particularly at independent stores who I think we should all support.

Am taking a student group to England later this month to do Shakespeare stuff, esp. theatre, and we'll be seeing, among other things, Ian McKellan as King Lear... :)

More soon.

Feb 14th, 2007

On The Fifth Day is now available for pre-order through Amazon, Books-a-million and other on-line stores! I've put a link on the main page. The book will be released at the beginning of July.

Just agreed to a deal with Nemira for publication of FIFTH in Romania. They are also the publishers of MASK for that territory.

Jan 2nd, 2007

Happy New Year! I've been pretty lax up-dating this of late as the tail end of the semester got the better of me, but I hope to have more time this year in between various writing assignments and directing Dr. Faustus on the UNCC mainstage.

The new book, officially titled ON THE FIFTH DAY has been approved by my editor and sent on for final copy editing. I also have a sneak peak at the cover art. Imagine it with a cut away center (like MASK), embossing and gold foil wherever there's yellow and you'll get a sense of the thing:

The article on using Shakespeare for plotting that I co-wrote with Mary Bly, AKA Eloisa James came out in The Writer magazine in December, and I have chapter in a book on getting published that will be out later this year. More on that later.

More soon. Promise.

AJH

October 17th, 2006

Things have been nuts: lots of things going on which meant I had to pull out of Bouchercon, among other things. I'm still awaiting final notes on the new book but I did get some very good news re. MASK sales in the U.S. which are far higher than anyone anticipated: over 100,000 sold in the first six months!

The new book has been very favorably received by my agents and passed along for consideration by foreign markets as the final edit is approved by Berkley. I'll update as those come in. So far the only foreign rights sold for the new book are to a Dutch publisher who bought them for both books together. We see...

August 30th, 2006

The Italian edition is out and there was a big feature in Il Mattino, the largest southern Italian daily, for those of you who read Italian.

I'll be doing a panel at Bouchercon in Madison at the end of September. Details on the news and Events page, along with an up-coming signing in Charlotte.

August 11th, 2006

Well, the big news is that I've completed the first draft of ON THE FIFTH DAY and am circulating it among a few trusted readers. It's been tough, but I feel good about it, and great about finishing it. I think it's richer, more complex and more heavily plotted than MASK and that the pacing is better, all things I worked on consciously. But who knows? I'm way too close to it right now to be objective. I'll gather my reader reports and revisit before sending it off to my editor...

Nice little piece in the New York Sun the other day on the success of MASK. Here's the link:

http://www.nysun.com/arts/graphic-novels-british-prizes-more/37163/

June 21st, 2006

Just noticed that I didn't put the date of my Bookmark signing up in my last posting! It's this Friday (23rd) 12-1.30 in Founders hall, Charlotte.

Looking forward to the US' must-win game against Ghana tomorrow after a strong showing against Italy, and hoping that the injury to Owen will let us see Walcott for England in the Ecuador game. Hopefully they'll manage to show up for the entire 90 minutes this time.

Oh yes, and I'm also writing my tail off...

June 14th, 2006

I seem to move from computer to T.V. coverage of the World Cup pretty much constantly now... It will be a kind of blessing when we get beyond the group stage and the sheer number of games diminishes. Then I'll get more done, see my family etc... England's second game (against Trinidad-Tobago) looms and I'm hoping for a more consistent performance than against Paraguay, where they faded badly after the first twenty minutes. Saturday's challenge to the US team is rather more imposing, and I'm afraid they won't be able to rebound from the harrowing loss to the Czech Republic. It's too bad, because I hate it that most of the (Non Hispanic) population of this country will take the US's failure to get out of the group stage as another reason not to watch... I miss soccer and its culture, clearly.

In MASK news, we just did a deal for the Dutch rights, which was an unexpected turn of events, doubly so because it was a two book deal, so the novel I'm currently working on is guaranteed at least one over seas edition. I'm a little surprised that it will be Holland (esp. since they picked up on MASK so late), but it's all good!

I've added another local signing in Founders Hall (the Bank of America building) Charlotte, at the Book Mark 12-1.30 p.m. Should be fun.

June 7th, 2006

Well, I'm back. It was a long and sometimes exhausting trip through Italy and Germany, much of the ridiculously cluttered itinerary dictated by research for the next book. But now I'm back and working every available minute on the story. I'm hesitant to say too much about where I've been because I don't want to give too much away about the book, but most of the core research centered around Naples and the Classical sites close by: Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Paestum. And I did indeed get to the strange and unnerving place of bones which I mentioned in my last post. It may take a while (i.e. when the book comes out next year) but I think I'll post pictures from there and the other sites here as a kind of on-line visual companion to the novel.

The German leg of the trip was mainly to visit friends and family in the Berlin and Frankfurt areas. This was my second time in Germany and it makes me want to set part of a book there, preferably with a plot that has nothing to do with World War Two. Berlin was especially interesting in terms of its late twentieth history, the rise and fall of the GDR etc. I came back itching to read (or reread) Le Carré, and watch those old Michael Cane/Harry Palmer cold war spy thrillers (Ipcress File, Funeral in Berlin etc.).

For better or (and?) worse, we got home just as the World Cup is about to kick off. I now have to work my writing schedule around the games. At least this time I won't have to get up in the middle of the night to watch, as I did when the tournament was in Japan/South Korea. I also won't be repeating my gloriously insane flight out there to see England lose to Brazil in the quarter finals. I was in Japan less time than I was on the plane. Returning via Chicago I thought I would die of exhaustion.

MASK made the top ten paperback list for Independent book sellers in April and seems to be continuing to do well, though I won't have real numbers for months. Right now I'm concentrating on the next one, which is actually very liberating. I don't hate the marketing side of publishing (yet), but I'll always prefer sitting by myself tapping out my stories...

May 7th, 2006

This will be my last posting for a few weeks as I'm off doing research till the end of the month. Nothing much new to report: Mask slipped out of the big lists with the release of the May books, but it still seems to be selling well and is still around in grocery stores and pharmacies. It seems to be gaining ground in independent book stores, which is really great, since that speaks to some word-of-mouth interest. Still, it's all guess work at this stage and will likely remain so for several months.

I'm finding (as you can tell) that it's tough not to obsess about these things. I find myself continually checking my Amazon sales ranking and trying to figure out what on earth those numbers mean... I'm rather looking forward to being in Europe where I won't be tempted to be anxiously browsing the web for new reviews...

I have some pretty exciting trips planned for the next couple of weeks, but I'm going to keep at least some of that to myself because I don't want to give away too much about the next book. I will say that I'll be spending some of my time underground in a place walled with human skulls and thigh bones... Sound intriguing/unsettling? Yeah, me too. I just hope I can get in.

What else? The Australian edition is out, and the Greek edition seems to be doing good business. I was hoping the Italian one would be out by the time I got there so I could use it as a calling card to get into some places that aren't open to the public (the above mentioned places of bones, included). I'll have to rely on charm... :)

Am going to stop writing now. I think I broke my finger playing football yesterday, and that's American football, not soccer: I'd never played before and wound up with two touchdown catches and an interception, so I'm feeling pretty pleased with myself despite the fact that I can barely walk today and I should be getting my hand X-rayed. Ah, the things we do to feel young and alive...

 April 27th, 2006

MASK is back up (to #102) on the USA Today list, so that's all 3 weeks since release. Pretty cool. I'm told we won't really know sales numbers till the end of the summer because of the way books get returned (i.e. trashed) by retailers if it isn't flying off the shelves, so things are likely to be up in the air for a long time. What I do know is that there has been another printing (7500 copies) to maintain stock levels at warehouses. This doesn't tell me anything direct about sales, I'm told, but it's a good sign...

Did my first radio interview today, with  KDAL in Duluth, MN. It was fun. For me, at least. I hope they thought so.

Added a contest to the main page as a way of dealing constructively with an error concerning the layout of Atlanta and environs that a reader pointed out to me. It's frustrating to think that despite the near decade I lived there I still got something wrong (I won't say what as there's a contest...). The irony is that if I had been researching a city I didn't know to use in the book and was working from a map, say, I wouldn't have made the error. The mistake came because I was relying on my own memory and tricked me, as memories often do... I'll say more about this after someone wins the contest.

April 24th, 2006

MASK is continuing to hold the #6 slot on the B&N massmarket bestseller list, which is very good news. It slipped a few places in the USA Today list last week, but apparently that's to be expected. There are whisperings of a second print run, though since the first was over 200,000 copies, I'll believe that when it happens.

Got my first negative review on Amazon from someone claiming the book is predictable trash. This despite his confession that he skipped large sections... Most enlightening. 

Ah well. I knew it was only a matter of time before I get what I thought were unfair criticisms, and I knew that I would obsess about them unreasonably. It's in my nature. I do the same thing with student evaluations: if I get one bad one in a stack of good ones, it's the bad one I remember.

I wonder if the desire to be liked (something most popular novelists flirt with) is crippling for an author, that the fear of upsetting people could become a stone around your neck? I knew that the politics of this book would upset some people, though that group is likely to be fairly small, and in the end I don't much care what they think. The next one might be trickier in that respect. The world--or at least our piece of it--seems so polarized right now that anything which reinforces a sense of 'us' and 'them' seems unhelpfully divisive. But at some point it starts to seem that getting everyone on board means that the idea you are trying to float probably isn't worth much. I guess I'll have to deal with the idea that some people are going to hate what I write, either because they find the ideas/politics objectionable or because they don't think it's very good. The latter will continue to bother me, I suspect. The former, I'll live with.

Just so I never forget it really happened... Here's the Barnes and Noble Mass Market best sellers list for this week.

April 18th, 2006

Just back from Philly and trying to find out what's going on with the book. Last week MASK entered the USA Today bestseller list at #85, which is pretty extraordinary when you consider that that list covers paperback, hardcover, fiction and nonfiction all in the same list. It's also #6 on Barnes and Noble's Mass market bestseller list behind Janet Evanovitch and 4 Dan Brown novels! I don't think it can get much higher than that... I'm told that mass market paperback originals almost never make the NY Times list, but of course, I haven't given up on that yet. Now we'll see if it goes up or down as the new numbers come out.

For all the strangeness of my sudden preoccupation with these numbers and the baroque ways in which the various lists are compiled (which rarely have much to do with actual units sold, so they can be wildly different in what they say), I think the most bizarre thing of the last few days was seeing MASK in airport bookstores!

I did a joint signing with fellow Shakespearean and romance writer Eloisa James. She was really terrific, and in talking about the industry to her fans, I learned a good deal about how this crazy business works.

Booked my Italy/Germany trip. Now I have to figure out exactly where I need to be and what I have to find out for the next book. The whole thing is sketched out, but apart from a hundred pages or so, it's light on specifics and I've got to get it written by September. Who knew that my long term hobby/escape would turn out to be work? Still, a nice problem to have.

April 5th , 2006

Well, it's out. Now we wait and see...

Yesterday I did my first signing with the smart and hospitable  folks at Park Road Books here in Charlotte and got a nice stream of people.

April 3, 2006

One day before release... Spent yesterday putting up flyers for the local signings and e-mailing local media. But the whirlwind is largely psychological and I'm resigned to the fact that I really have no control over what will happen next.

The big news is that I've sealed a deal for the next book with Berkley! They've been most generous, particularly as the agreement was made on the strength of a synopsis and some sample pages, and are looking for a release date of July 07. I just have to write the book now... But that's the fun part. The title is up in the air with working versions of The Jesus Fish and On the Fifth Day the recent front runners, though I doubt we'll go with either. Like MASK it will be thriller, this time beginning with the death of a Jesuit priest on a  remote island in the Philippines and his brother Thomas's subsequent attempt to unravel the circumstances. Along the way he'll be drawn into the contentious realm of science and theology in his pursuit of what exactly his brother was pursuing when he died. It goes without saying that a lot of powerful people would prefer that Thomas never figure out what really happened or what his brother had come to believe.

And no, it's not another attempt to bash the Catholics...

Parts of the book will take place in Italy and Japan, places which have been close to my heart for a long time. Parts of the early summer are now being ear-marked for research trips since I haven't been to some of the Italian sites I want to use in many years. That--and the writing itself--is the fun part. I'd take that over marketing a book I've already written any day...

March 15, 2006

The book will be out in a little over two weeks. I've scheduled some local signings (see Events) and am nervously watching for reviews. Those I've seen thus far have been very encouraging (see reviews) but there's always a chance that a book by a new author, especially a paperback, will disappear before anyone gets chance to read it. The print run is great. Now people have to get the word out... Alas, it's the big boys who get all the publicity because they have the most money tied to their work. For absolute beginners such as me, there's not much to spend and Oprah is beating down my door...

The irony, of course, is that in real terms I'm not an absolute beginner. I've been writing for twenty years after all, even though this is the first novel to be read by more than my immediate family and friends! For the last couple of decades I've wanted to tell people I was a writer and never felt that I could because to do so might suggest a degree of professionalism that wasn't true. "I write," I'd say--which is somehow a different and less grandiose claim--and would be immediately asked "anything I might know?" Then I would look shame-faced and mutter "not unless you've been going through my garbage" or something equally self-deprecating.

But as of April 4th, that changes. I'll be able to say I'm a writer. I think. Does it matter that I have a regular job as well? Do I have to make all my money as a writer to be able to say "I'm a writer"? I don't know. More things to worry about...